Professor Sang Benqian Gave a Lecture at the Fourth SHUFE LAW School Forum

News

By Hu Meilin, translated by Peng Xin. June 26th, 2015

On the afternoon of June 5th 2015, the fourth SHUFE LAW School Forum was held successfully in No.4 teaching building Room 406. Professor Sang Benqian, a Special-Term professor in Chinese Ocean University’s “ prosperous project” and doctoral supervisor, was invited to give an academic lecture on the theme “religion in evolutionary view: retrospect, criticism and reconstitution.” This lecture was presided by associate professor Hu Lin who is the Associate Dean of the SHUFE Faculty of Law.

Professor Sang interpreted the human body’s reward and punishment mechanism based on human’s pleasure and pain. He then analyzed the origin of religion by the theory of Darwinian Evolution and explained the evolution of human body function and the emergence of religion by evolutionary fitness theories. Except that, he analyzed the reasons to set religious rites according to economic benefit-cost analysis. Professor Sang pointed that although evolutionary fitness theories can explain the motivation of religious belief, it can’t explain religious extreme behavior. He held the view that practice existed before belief and criticized the viewpoint proposed by many western scholars that religion originated from belief. Besides, Pro Sang explained religious funcition through happiness formula, which is the ratio of realization and expectation. Therefore, to enhance happiness is to increase realization by science and to decrease expectation by religion. During the course of the lecture, Pro Sang shared a story of Alexandria and Diogenes with us, and he deemed Alexandria’s happiness is more fragile than Diogene’s. In the end, Pro Sang explained some mysterious stuff: religious meditation and emptying spirit can make one peaceful and pleasant, which he thought is the omission of evolutionary fitness theory and a higher system than natural selection.

Professor Sang gave us a wonderful religious philosophy class with facetious and salt words, interesting stories and profound knowledge. And he also responded positively to students in the Q&A round. To sum up,the lecture broaden our horizon and open the minds of the present teachers and students which benefits them a lot.

Original News(http://law.shufe.edu.cn/structure/xyxwxx_174015_1.htm)

Published：2015-06-26 Hit：817